A Torch Set To Flame
by Owlmoon of OwlClan
Summary: Sophie just got her matchmaker scroll, and everyone is counting on her to make the right decision. When it comes down to Fitz and Keefe, she knows that she will have to choose, and it's going to hurt someone she loves. Faced with such a hard decision, Sophie is doing her best to make sure her friendships aren't torn apart.
1. Chapter 1 (The 'Special' Day)

Chapter 1-

Biana squealed in her ear, waking her in the most annoying way possible. "Eeek!"

Sophie sat up so fast that she felt vaguely dizzy. Forcing her eyes open, she tried to make out the details of the room, but they were still adjusting. "What's wrong?" She demanded.

Her friend giggled. "Why do you think something's wrong? I mean, it's only like we're getting our matchmaker scrolls today!"

Sophie let out a groan, glancing around the room to see if her other friends were here. "Where's everyone else?"

Biana shrugged. "I made sure they stayed downstairs, because, well, what girl wants to wake up to a crowd without makeup on?"

Sophie raised her hand with a cocky smile. "Me?"

Biana pouted. "Just hurry up," she said grouchily.

"Okay, okay," Sophie said getting out of bed. Clapping her hands and letting light flood the room, she went to her closet to grab the first pair of jeans with a tunic that she saw.

"No way you're actually wearing that," said her friend, who was peeking over her shoulder. "Here, let me."

Sophie's cheeks heated, but she moved aside to let Biana find the gown she thought was good. Hurrying over to Vertina, she found a hairbrush and started to tug it through her tangled frizz.

"Whoa!" The mirror said at first glance. "Want me to help?"

Glaring daggers at the mirror, she only nodded, hoping that it would involve something like a miracle.

Soon, Vertina had made her hair into some braided ponytail completed with a twist on top. Turns out, that was just in time.

Keefe strode into the room, glancing at Biana before his eyes rested on her.

Flushing, she looked at her feet. "So, what do you think?"

"Um," he said, kind of speechless, "you look really cute."

Sophie only looked at her feet, wishing that she wouldn't blush so easily. "You really think so?"

Keefe nodded, a bit in awe. "Yeah."

Biana had been watching the exchange from the side with amusement, but Sophie only noticed her now. "You guys are really cuuute!" She squealed.

Sophie scowled.

Biana frowned at her, then glanced at Keefe. "Excuse us, I haven't done her makeup and dress yet."

Keefe looked at her, a twinkle coming into his eyes. "Well, then, excuse me. Good luck with that one," he joked before waltzing out.

…

Biana had made her look like she was attending an important event. When she looked in the mirror, it was impossible to recognize the person who was looking back at her. Sophie glanced at Biana in disbelief, pointing her finger at the mirror. "Is that really _me_?"

"Yep," Biana said, with a smirk. "That dress looks adorable on you, don't you think?"

She only groaned, starting down the stairs, her face lighting up when she saw her friends. "Hi, guys!"

"Gosh," Linh gasped. "Sophie, you look really, really pretty."

Fitz looked at her, something about the hungry desire in her eyes making her feel nervous.

Sophie felt her cheeks growing hot. Shaking her head, she said, "Biana should get all the credit, really."

Tam jumped in smiling at Biana. "Yeah, you did a really great job."

Linh exchanged glances with Sophie. It was no secret that Tam had a crush on Biana.

The victim of the compliment only blushed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Thanks." Her words were for Tam, but her eyes were for Keefe.

Keefe was staring at Sophie, studying her. Taking something from his back pocket, he started to sketch her.

Dex spoke now, filling the awkward silence. "Ready to go, guys?" His voice seemed really strained, looking at everyone but Sophie.

A chorus of "Yeah!" went up from the kids, and they all climbed upstairs to the Leapmaster to leap away.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2-

Sophie wasn't really looking forwards to this. Whichever boy was the highest on her matchmaker's list, it was hardly going to be a fun time.

Swallowing, she followed her friends into a strange office building, eyeing its modern design. Everything about this place felt cold. Unfriendly.

Biana marched up confidently to the receptionist. "We're here for our matchmaker's scrolls."

An elf glanced up from behind his huge desk, putting down the papers he was studying to look up at them. "Names?"

"Biana and Fitz Vacker, Sophie Foster, Keefe Sencen, Dex Dizznee, and Tam and Linh Song, sir." Came Biana's confident reply.

"Sophie Foster, hmm?" It was so low that she wasn't sure anyone else had heard it. The elf from behind the desk rose and pulled out a file cabinet drawer and pulled out a scroll case and handed it to her. Slowly, he repeated the process for all of her friends.

By the time he was done, Sophie was shivering.

Keefe noticed, and unclasped his cloak from his shoulders. "Here," he said, wrapping it around her gently.

"Th-thanks," Sophie chattered back, hoping her cheeks weren't as red as she thought they were.

Somehow, Keefe seemed oblivious to the nasty glaring happening from Fitz and Dex. That was something cute about him, Sophie decided.

Gripping her scroll case, she made it outside before Biana started squealing.

"Can you _believe_ it? We actually have our scrolls!" She was actually jumping up and down as she said this, and Sophie couldn't help but notice Tam watching her with some sort of amusement in his eyes.

"Yes, Biana." He said dryly. "It's a miracle."

Biana only shot him a dirty look before turning to the rest of the group. "Do you guys want to open them now?"

Fitz shook his head. "We should open them somewhere a bit more private, don't you think?" He shot Sophie a sideways look.

"Good idea," Dex said quickly, smiling at Sophie.

"Sounds good to me too," Linh said with a nice smile at Fitz. "We could do it at Everglen by the lake—I think that would be really nice."

"Yes!" Biana squealed. She tucked her scroll case under her arm, everyone else doing likewise. Quickly pulling out her home crystal, she grabbed Keefe's hand. Was she blushing?

Sophie didn't have time to decide as Keefe grabbed her hand, quickly followed by Linh, who grabbed Fitz's hand. Fitz awkwardly held out a hand, and both Dex and Tam hesitated before Tam grabbed it. Dex then grabbed his hand, which was just in time because Biana had already cast the beam of light and stepped into it, taking everyone else with her.

Everglen glittered before them now—blinding gates and all. Keefe was the first to let go of someone's hand. Everyone else quickly followed, and Fitz stepped forwards to lick the silver DNA strip. The gates swung open quietly.

Biana stepped inside, followed by everyone else. The six of them made their way down the paths in the woods. Soon they were by the lake, which was sparkling and filled with—

"Moonlarks?" Sophie said in disbelief. "I thought your dad returned those."

"Well, yeah," Fitz said, his cheeks flaming. "But he decided to keep them, and the Council let him skip all the applications, so now…" He gestured to the bunches of moonlarks.

"Wow," Linh whispered softly. "That's kind of amazing."

Tam nodded in agreement, speechless.

"Well," Dex said, being horribly practical. "I think that we should open this." He held up his scroll case.

Keefe laughed. "Foster chill out, okay? Your emotions are messing up my excitement, besides, you look like a ghost."

Sophie glared at him, choosing to sit by Dex instead. "Who wants to go first?"

"Me!" Biana said immediately. She plopped down and read all of the people she knew.

Biana's List-

1\. Dempsey Palltoy.

2\. Tam Song (Tam looked like he would want to jump for joy when she said his name…)

3\. Dex Dizznee

4\. Jensi Prescott.

5\. Wylie Endal

"That's all of the people I know," Biana said. "Except…" She looked like she was gonna cry now. "Keefe is…my thirty-second." It was no secret that she had a crush on him.

Linh quickly volunteered to read her list next. She read everyone in her top five.

Linh' s List-

1\. Fitz Vacker (Linh's smile went big here.)

2\. Dex Dizznee

3\. Frad Paxter

4\. Xavier Stilter

5\. Keefe Sencen (Biana gave Linh the dirtiest look ever.)

Fitz looked uncomfortable at his name as her first match. "Um, I guess I can read mine next."

1\. Sophie Foster (He didn't look at her at all, but her heart did that stupid fluttering thing anyway.)

2\. Trella Fox

3\. Linh Song (She was beaming now.)

4\. Layla Feater

5\. Regan Merth

Keefe shot Fitz an evil look, whipping his scroll out of his scroll case with relish. "I have Sophie as my second…" He shot her one of his mischievous looks while Dex and Fitz glared at him. Then he looked down at his list and his face sagged. "I have Linh as my 5th, and Biana as my thirty-eighth."

Biana's eyes went unfocused, as she pinched herself. Sophie really couldn't blame her for wishing that it was all just a bad dream; she was doing the same.

Dex recited his list, but at this point Sophie wasn't even paying attention. The only thing she heard was him reading off, "Dina Fodler," and then his face lighting up. He'd had a crush on her for so long, this was a huge accomplishment, though it still made him blush when she wrapped him in a hug.

"Are you gonna ask her out?" Biana inquired with one of her sassy poses.

Red splotches appeared on his cheeks. "Maybe. I don't know."

Tam read his list off next, a bit too eagerly. "Biana is my second, Sophie my eighth, Marella my tenth…Maruca my first." Though he wasn't blushing, she could tell he was uncomfortable.

"So, who's next?" Keefe asked. Then he grinned. "Right, it's Foster because her emotions just turned to dread."

She desperately tried to make up an excuse, with no prevail. "Um…" In her trembling hand, she desperately tried not to drop it. Unfurling the ribbon, she pulled open the paper only to see….

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Author's Note~

 _You guys, I'm so, so happy you like this story! I was afraid that it was going to take a week for someone to notice this, but apparently not! I have decided on some ships to do, from the a previous question, but I am not going to reveal them-you'll just have to keep reading to find out! I'm really trying to post a new chapter every day, but there might be a few where I just have to skip over because of homework._

 _Thanks to everyone here that reviewed my story-I am always interested in improving, so shout-out to you all. I'm planning to keep this fan fiction active, so be on the lookout for new chapters! Another thanks goes to everyone who has written a Keeper fan fiction...you are the ones who inspired me to write this._

 _So...about that cliff hanger...sorry, not sorry. I love, love, love cliffys and am going to be doing them on almost every chapter._

 _I hope you enjoy the next chapter:)_

 _Owl~_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3-

Sophie unfurled her list. It was full of surprises, really.

1\. Keefe Sencen (She was never going to hear the end of it.)

2\. Fitz Vacker (Her heart fluttered, but quickly settled down again.)

3\. Jensi Fisrey (She didn't like him in that way.)

4\. Dex Dizznee (She was glad she didn't get this when he still liked her as the feeling was not mutual.)

5\. Frederick Pelton (Who the heck is he?)

6\. Wylie Endal (Wasn't exactly on friendly terms with him…)

7\. Tam Song (Nope.)

8\. Valin Doile (Eww! Keefe was going to tease her big time now…oh, no.)

9\. Dempsey Palltoy (She'd smacked him in the face with a splotcher, hard; he hated her.)

10\. Derek Serth

Sophie felt her cheeks grow hot after reading the last name. Derek was the hottest guy at Foxfire—besides Fitz and Keefe of course. He had a perfect tan, with well-muscled arms and legs. The guy had the cutest smile (besides Fitz) and was so super sweet. He also didn't have a reputation as a player, unlike Keefe and Fitz. She was totally going to have a Winnowwing Gala just to meet him.

"Whoa, Foster, what's making you so excited over there?" Keefe asked, wiggling his eyebrows up and down.

"Derek's on my list!" She squealed, before she could stop herself. "He's so, so cute!"

"Really?" Biana said, on her feet with Sophie on an instant. "Oh. My. God. Sophie, you're so, so lucky!"

Linh gasped, looking at her with newfound respect. "Seriously? He's like, the cutest guy in the school!" She shot her brother and the boys and uneasy look. "No offense." Linh and Tam had started Foxfire at Level Six, which was only a week ago.

"None taken," all four boys rushed to say—a bit too quickly.

Sophie squealed, jumping up and down. Then she stopped and sat back down. _When did I become one of those girly-girls?_

Keefe, Fitz, and Dex were giving all of the girls dirty looks now, and Linh and Biana sat down, faintly embarrassed.

"I don't get what he has that I don't," Keefe huffed loudly. "I mean, does he have The Hair?"

Biana, taking the chance, scooted over to him, putting her head on his shoulder. "You're perfect just the way you are, if someone doesn't see that, they're not worth it."

He, in return, put his arm around her. "Thanks, Biana."

A feeling of envy bubbled in Sophie's chest, and she backed away, hoping Keefe hadn't noticed-he had enough teasing material already.

"Yeah, thanks, Sis." Fitz chimed in, rolling his eyes.

Linh glanced at him shyly. "How are you jealous? You've got, like, everything!"

Fitz blushed. "Not everything," he remarked sullenly, throwing Sophie a glance.

Linh's gaze immediately dropped to her feet. "I see what you mean," she said quietly. Fitz didn't seem to understand that he'd hurt her feelings.

"Well," Sophie interrupted, "I have had a _lovely_ time, but I have other business to attend to." Pulling out her pathfinder, she spun the top crystal, setting it on Havenfield. "Bye!" She cast the beam of light as everyone watched her step into it. The last thing she saw was Keefe pulling out his and saying that he needed to go too.

Arriving in at the green pastures, she made her way past Verdi to open the door to the house. Inside, Edaline was baking, humming to herself in the kitchen.

"Hmmmmmm, hmmm, hmmm," she hummed. Then she glanced up. "Hello, Sophie. How was your time at the Matchmakers'?" She said this with one of those aren't-you-the-cutest smiles that made her want to barf.

"Fine, Mom." Instead of focusing on the scroll in her hand, she pointed to the oven. "Whatcha bakin'?"

"Hmmm?" Edaline said distractedly. "Indigoobers, custard bursts, the usual."

"I'll leave you to it then," Sophie made her way to the stairs, starting to climb two steps at a time like she normally did.

It wasn't long until she reached her room, where something was waiting for her on her desk. It was from Sandor, who was taking the day off. It said, _I'm at home, the Queen called a meeting. Call if you need anything…_

"Hmph," she grumbled. Flopping onto her bed, she stared at the ceiling. So many matches…choosing between Fitz and all of her other matches.

A hollow knocking sounded at her door. "Come in," Sophie called, expecting Edaline.

Instead, a blonde boy peeked his head in with a trademark smile full of mischief. "'Sup Foster," he stuck his tongue out casually, coming into the room as if it were his.

"Keefe," she greeted. "What are you doing here?" It was surprising that he wanted to come see her right after she'd left the group.

Plopping on the bed, he put his arm around her, gesturing with his other. "I wanted to ensure the future of Keefoster, of course."

Shrugging his arm off, she lay back on the bed. "In elfish…?" The prompt was good natured, but she wanted to get something out of him.

"In elfish there is no word known as 'elfish'," he joked, sidestepping the question. "Seriously, come on."

"Whatever," she said with a disdainful look. "So?"

"Look," Keefe said, solemn. "Do you want to…I dunno, hang out sometime?"

"Like a date?" Sophie sat up straight. She hadn't been expecting this from him, of all people. It was a nice surprise, but she couldn't be sure about how she felt.

He made a face. "I prefer not to call it that. So, want to?" He looked uncomfortable, but at the same time he seemed way more serious than he normally was.

"I mean, sure, if it's only hanging out," Sophie said cautiously. "When do you want to?" Please not anything romantic…

"Um," Keefe chewed his lip. "After school, if you want. Maybe Candleshade?" He flipped gorgeous hair out of his eyes, which were sparkling with interest.

Cute. Sophie nodded. "Alright, I'll meet you there as soon as I change into something else afterschool."

"Great," he said. "What do you want to do?"

"Homework would be great, actually." Sophie said, not wanting things too awkward between them. "Could you give me some tips on those Polygot skills?"

"Duh." Keefe glanced down at her shoulders. "Can I get my cloak back now? I mean, unless you want to keep it."

"Oh, um," she stuttered. Her cheeks felt hot. "Of course." Swiftly unclasping it, she whipped it off in one smooth motion, holding it out to him.

"Thanks," Keefe joked, his hand touching hers as he took it. "Be there or be square." He was using one of her human jokes that she'd taught him, though he'd claimed it was super lame. So much for that.

Author's Note-

 _Thank you to my many readers! I just want to reassure you-I am not in any way being pressured to get my HW done, and am quite enjoying writing these chapters. I love to write, and I am happy to do it._

 _I'm planning on having a chapter out tomorrow too, so make time for reading!_

Owl~


	4. Note

Author's Note-

 **All of the character belong to Shannon Messenger, and I am saying that now because I didn't say it earlier. You may not copy this story unless you give credit to me, and even then, you need to ask my permission.**

 _Okay, so I'm done with listing rules for now. Just wanna tell you guys that I'm sorry for missing a day or two. I have been relaxing and spending time with my family. I promise that you guys will get at least two chapters tomorrow, if not feel free to remind me._

 _SPOILERS-_

 _If you haven't already figured out, this is going to be a romance story. My next POV is going to be Keefe, so it will have some Sokeefe moments. If you haven't noticed yet, I ship Keefoster hard. I love them!_

 _Hope you can keep reading! Owl~_


	5. Chapter 4

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p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Be there or be square? What was I thinking? Keefe wondered as he fumbled for his home crystal. That's like, the lamest joke in the Universe. Sure, Sophie had taught it to him, but come on, it was a human joke!/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"His thoughts were always short-circuited when he talked to Sophie, but normally he could at least joke around without getting flustered. It was probably because he was trying to ask her out./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"As soon as he'd suggested hanging out together, her emotions had turned surprised, kind of scared, confused, and nothing more. Well, not that he had detected. Then he'd taken it back, and her emotions turned to relief, confusion, and…maybe a tiny bit of appeal. But not enough to overtake what she felt for Fitz. Keefe knew that firsthand./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Shivering, Keefe spun it to the special facet he'd made: the one straight to his room. He'd made it with his mom's old kit. Another chill went up his spine./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Lady Gisela had…well, he didn't know. He missed her, more than anyone would understand. He doubted even Sophie knew this much pain. Every time his mom crossed his mind, the pain felt fresh as ever. Stupid, stupid ogres./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Stepping into the beam of light he'd cast, Keefe sat on his bed, eyeing every one of the hiding spots in his room. It was mostly just his pranking supplies, except for a few things. Making sure to lock the door, he took in a breath. Standing on his chair, he lifted his mirror, putting it on the floor on its back. Putting his fingerprint on the keypad, he watched as a small drawer opened up inside of it, a thin, shallow hiding place. Dex had helped him create this, and a few other things, in exchange for not being pranked for the next year. Keefe had made his friend promise that he wouldn't access it ever. Now he pulled out a thin slip of paper. span style="font-style: italic;"Keefe, I'm doing this for you. Love, Mom. /spanFresh tears stung his eyes as he squeezed them shut in pain, refusing to cry. He'd done enough grieving; besides, it was pathetic—Keefe Sencen wasn't supposed to cry. Sophie would say otherwise, he knew, and the thought made him smile. Folding the note up again, he shut the tiny drawer, hearing the satisfying span style="font-style: italic;"click /spannoise that it made./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Stacking the mirror back on its stand, he was looking at the elf he saw there, it looked nothing like what anyone at Foxfire would think./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Sighing, he leaped to Foxfire. After walking through some other halls, he came across Foster by her locker. Ducking behind the door, he leaned against the lockers casually./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-style: italic;"Wham! /spanSophie shut her locker, only to turn and yelp. "Keefe! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""What's a heart attack?" He asked. Then he blinked. "That's not what I was here to talk about, though."/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"She only sighed. "A heart attack is when someone scares you so badly that it feels like your heart will stop beating." She glanced it him, curiosity shining in her eyes. "What did you want to talk about me, then?"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Keefe nervously mussed his hair, then combed it back in spikes. "Well, maybe after our hangout session we could actually go on a date?" He'd been thinking about this a lot, and he wanted to take the opportunity while she was available./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Sure," she blurted eagerly, then covered her mouth and blushed. "I mean, I guess that I will." She was embarrassed now, but a strong sense of relief seemed to be the main emotion./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Cool," he only said. Walking away, he yelled over his shoulder, "It's a date, Foster!" This turned several heads in the hallway. His first session was with Lady Belva, so he ditched and spent the time thinking of what he and Foster could do./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Eventually, he decided on taking her to a beach—a human one—with a picnic and a telescope. Besides, he wanted to see just how cute she looked in a bathing suit./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Surprisingly, the whole day went by rather fast, and he found himself thinking about Sophie for most of it. Licking the panel on the gate, he watched as it swung open, then got on the Vortinator. Hailing his dad, he said, "Guess what?"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Lord Cassius didn't even glance at his son. "It's prank day?" He asked dryly./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Well, yeah, but it's always prank day. I got a date!"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"His father dropped his pen. "Wait—you actually got a date? It's that Sophie girl, isn't it?"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""'Course it's Foster," Keefe said, spiking his hair. "No girl can resist the Keefster, which, by the way, is Keefoster now!"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""What's your point?" Lord Cassius asked./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""My point," Keefe said irritably, "is that if you aren't nice to her, there will be some nasty revenge coming your way." He hung up, tucking his imparter in his belt./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Calling out to the Vortinator, "One thirty-three!" He watched it spin to life, whipping him up fast./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"As soon as he stepped off the Vortinator, his imparter buzzed. Glancing down, he smiled. It was Foster. Running his hand through his hair, he tapped the imparter, and her face showed up. "Foster! He greeted./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Keefe!" She said back./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""So, what's up?" He asked, hoping that she wasn't going to cancel at last minute./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Well," she said, avoiding his eyes. "I might've told Grady and he might've…."/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Keefe groaned. "Exploded, right? Then went on and on about 'That Boy.'"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"She laughed. "No, not even close. He reacted well, actually. The only thing is that you are totally going to have to suffer through a lecture."/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Really?" Keefe asked. "Wow, he's come a long way."/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""I know, right?"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""You know I would do anything for you, Foster." He was actually serious this time, and it seemed to stop her in her tracks./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Sophie blushed. "The other thing I wanted to talk to you about was…well, what am I supposed to wear?"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Biana's face popped onto the screen. "At least tell me! I need to make her look good. Also, you guys are totally adorable."/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Keefe's face went super red, and his mouth kind of fell open. "You heard all of that?"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"It was Biana's turn to blush. "Um, yeah, maybe. But seriously, I need you to tell me."/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Yeah, yeah." He waved it away, looking at Sophie. "Foster, aren't you supposed to be over here with me for that hangout session?"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Hangout session?" Biana, screamed, turning on Sophie. "You never told me about this!"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""It's not like I actually need to get makeup on or anything, we're just hanging out!" She protested, looking at him./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""No, it's not!"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Is too!"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Is not!"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""Ladies, ladies," Keefe said. "I'm sure there's enough of me to go around. "Just—"/p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"Both of them glared at him, and Biana hung up on the imparter./p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p  
p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 8pt; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;""—chill out." He finished to an empty imparter./p  
/div  
/div  
/div 


	6. Chapter 6

Be there or be square? What was I thinking? Keefe wondered as he fumbled for his home crystal. That's like, the lamest joke in the Universe. Sure, Sophie had taught it to him, but come on, it was a human joke!

His thoughts were always short-circuited when he talked to Sophie, but normally he could at least joke around without getting flustered. It was probably because he was trying to ask her out.

As soon as he'd suggested hanging out together, her emotions had turned surprised, kind of scared, confused, and nothing more. Well, not that he had detected. Then he'd taken it back, and her emotions turned to relief, confusion, and…maybe a tiny bit of appeal. But not enough to overtake what she felt for Fitz. Keefe knew that firsthand.

Shivering, Keefe spun it to the special facet he'd made: the one straight to his room. He'd made it with his mom's old kit. Another chill went up his spine.

Lady Gisela had…well, he didn't know. He missed her, more than anyone would understand. He doubted even Sophie knew this much pain. Every time his mom crossed his mind, the pain felt fresh as ever. Stupid, stupid ogres.

Stepping into the beam of light he'd cast, Keefe sat on his bed, eyeing every one of the hiding spots in his room. It was mostly just his pranking supplies, except for a few things. Making sure to lock the door, he took in a breath. Standing on his chair, he lifted his mirror, putting it on the floor on its back. Putting his fingerprint on the keypad, he watched as a small drawer opened up inside of it, a thin, shallow hiding place. Dex had helped him create this, and a few other things, in exchange for not being pranked for the next year. Keefe had made his friend promise that he wouldn't access it ever. Now he pulled out a thin slip of paper. _Keefe, I'm doing this for you. Love, Mom._ Fresh tears stung his eyes as he squeezed them shut in pain, refusing to cry. He'd done enough grieving; besides, it was pathetic—Keefe Sencen wasn't supposed to cry. Sophie would say otherwise, he knew, and the thought made him smile. Folding the note up again, he shut the tiny drawer, hearing the satisfying _click_ noise that it made.

Stacking the mirror back on its stand, he was looking at the elf he saw there, it looked nothing like what anyone at Foxfire would think.

Sighing, he leaped to Foxfire. After walking through some other halls, he came across Foster by her locker. Ducking behind the door, he leaned against the lockers casually.

 _Wham!_ Sophie shut her locker, only to turn and yelp. "Keefe! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"What's a heart attack?" He asked. Then he blinked. "That's not what I was here to talk about, though."

She only sighed. "A heart attack is when someone scares you so badly that it feels like your heart will stop beating." She glanced it him, curiosity shining in her eyes. "What did you want to talk about me, then?"

Keefe nervously mussed his hair, then combed it back in spikes. "Well, maybe after our hangout session we could actually go on a date?" He'd been thinking about this a lot, and he wanted to take the opportunity while she was available.

"Sure," she blurted eagerly, then covered her mouth and blushed. "I mean, I guess that I will." She was embarrassed now, but a strong sense of relief seemed to be the main emotion.

"Cool," he only said. Walking away, he yelled over his shoulder, "It's a date, Foster!" This turned several heads in the hallway. His first session was with Lady Belva, so he ditched and spent the time thinking of what he and Foster could do.

Eventually, he decided on taking her to a beach—a human one—with a picnic and a telescope. Besides, he wanted to see just how cute she looked in a bathing suit.

Surprisingly, the whole day went by rather fast, and he found himself thinking about Sophie for most of it. Licking the panel on the gate, he watched as it swung open, then got on the Vortinator. Hailing his dad, he said, "Guess what?"

Lord Cassius didn't even glance at his son. "It's prank day?" He asked dryly.

"Well, yeah, but it's always prank day. I got a date!"

His father dropped his pen. "Wait—you actually got a date? It's that Sophie girl, isn't it?"

"'Course it's Foster," Keefe said, spiking his hair. "No girl can resist the Keefster, which, by the way, is Keefoster now!"

"What's your point?" Lord Cassius asked.

"My point," Keefe said irritably, "is that if you aren't nice to her, there will be some nasty revenge coming your way." He hung up, tucking his imparter in his belt.

Calling out to the Vortinator, "One thirty-three!" He watched it spin to life, whipping him up fast.

As soon as he stepped off the Vortinator, his imparter buzzed. Glancing down, he smiled. It was Foster. Running his hand through his hair, he tapped the imparter, and her face showed up. "Foster! He greeted.

"Keefe!" She said back.

"So, what's up?" He asked, hoping that she wasn't going to cancel at last minute.

"Well," she said, avoiding his eyes. "I might've told Grady and he might've…."

Keefe groaned. "Exploded, right? Then went on and on about 'That Boy.'"

She laughed. "No, not even close. He reacted well, actually. The only thing is that you are totally going to have to suffer through a lecture."

"Really?" Keefe asked. "Wow, he's come a long way."

"I know, right?"

"You know I would do anything for you, Foster." He was actually serious this time, and it seemed to stop her in her tracks.

Sophie blushed. "The other thing I wanted to talk to you about was…well, what am I supposed to wear?"

Biana's face popped onto the screen. "At least tell me! I need to make her look good. Also, you guys are totally adorable."

Keefe's face went super red, and his mouth kind of fell open. "You heard all of that?"

It was Biana's turn to blush. "Um, yeah, maybe. But seriously, I need you to tell me."

"Yeah, yeah." He waved it away, looking at Sophie. "Foster, aren't you supposed to be over here with me for that hangout session?"

"Hangout session?" Biana, screamed, turning on Sophie. "You never told me about this!"

"It's not like I actually need to get makeup on or anything, we're just hanging out!" She protested, looking at him.

"No, it's not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Ladies, ladies," Keefe said. "I'm sure there's enough of me to go around. "Just—"

Both of them glared at him, and Biana hung up on the imparter.

"—chill out." He finished to an empty imparter.


	7. Chapter 6- (Previous Chapter Named Wrong

Chapter 6-

Sophie had definitely had fun at their hangout session, but now she was with Biana and Linh, trying to understand why Biana insisted on her wearing a bikini and waterproof makeup. "So, we're going to something involving Selkie skin?" She knew that it had something to do with water, but she didn't think that elves had beaches or water slides, which was a shame.

"No, silly," her friend replied, rolling her teal eyes. "I would tell you and say duh, but he's sworn me to secrecy."

She sighed. "Probably does have something to do with Selkie skin." Studying Linh's soft, flowy hair, she confessed, "I still can't believe he actually asked me out." Sophie had only told the girls today, and both of them had rushed over immediately.

Linh smiled. "It was totally obvious he was into you. Honestly, I think Fitz totally is too. What are you going to tell him and the other guys, by the way? I mean, I seriously doubt Keefe is going to keep his mouth shut about you two dating."

Biana shrugged. "All I know is that she's right; he's totally into you. Fitz has been mooning over you for a while now."

Sophie gulped. "Wait, really?" All of the pressure suddenly seemed piled onto her shoulders.

"Yeah, you really need to break it to him gently," Biana said in her usual way, causally checking her nails. "I would ask your boyfriend to keep quiet for now. We won't tell."

"He's not my—" Sophie stopped. They were dating now, so technically, he was her boyfriend, and she was his girlfriend.

Linh was studying Biana. "You're not jealous? I know you have a crush on him."

"You're not jealous? I know you have a crush on Fitz."

"I'm hoping he realizes it on his own," Linh said, ducking her head. "You?"

"Nah," she said. "I got over him—now I just can't decide between Dex and Tam—they're both adorable."

"Dex likes you, I can tell," Sophie said, looking in the mirror. "Whoa, you guys have really outdone yourselves."

"Ditto for Tam," Linh remarked. "Sophie, you look really pretty, now all we have to do really, is wait for your guy to arrive."

"Great." She flopped on the bed. "While we're on this topic, let's solve the Tam-Biana-Dex love triangle, shall we?"

"Good idea," the two girls chimed, plopping down next to her. Linh glanced at Biana. "What do you like about Dex?"

"Well, he's really sweet, kind, and super cute. Dex is always there when you need him; he puts his feelings aside for you. Downsides are, he tends to get jealous and isn't exactly popular with my brother."

"And what about my brother?"

"Tam's not cute, I'd say he's handsome. He's got really nice hair, too. He is nice, and really hot. He's supportive, protective. Downsides are, he can be a bit moody."

"Wow," Sophie commented. "I can see why you're facing this with us—it's literally an ultimatum!"

"I know," Linh agreed. "So, who are you going to choose?"

"Gosh," Biana said. "I have no clue."

"Just go with whoever asks you out first," Sophie suggested. "It's what I did. It saves you a lot of thought, and then you can find if you really like that elf."

"I probably will do that," she agreed. "I just don't know how to choose!" Turning to Linh she raised an eyebrow. "You don't like Dex? I always thought you had a crush on both him and my brother."

The shy elf shrugged. "Dex is super cute, and I do have a bit of a crush on him, but I think I like Fitz more. Besides," she added, with a gleam in her eyes, "I know you like him a lot, and I'd rather you choose your guy first. I'm not super into romance, and I know how much it means to you."

"Aw, thanks," The Vacker gushed, before turning on Sophie. "Even though I know you're probably going to hurt my brother, I just want to tell you that if you start dating Fitz or anything, your private life is going to go viral. Vackers are literally famous, and I know you are too, but that would be a huge buzz."

Sophie shuddered. "Thanks for telling me—I do not want that happening."

Linh laughed. "There is literally going to be crying in the Foxfire halls when someone starts dating Fitz—once they know that you and Keefe are a thing, some poor girl will be crying her room."

Sophie's eyebrows shot up. "Keefe isn't super famous or anything, right?"

"In Foxfire he is," joked a new voice. All of them turned, only to see Edaline. "Sophie, your date is at the door."

Her eyes went wide. "Okay. Grady isn't here, right?"

"Um," her mother shuffled her feet. "He's due back any minute, so I would go quickly if I were you."

She didn't need to be told twice. Making her way across the room, Sophie gave her friends an apologetic smile before picking up her skirts and sprinting down the stairs at top speed.

Keefe was already on the couch, lounging. When he saw her, his jaw dropped. "You know that we're going somewhere that involves water, right?"

Sophie bobbed her head up and down like an idiot before taking his arm and dragging him out the door. "Grady's supposed to be here any minute; we need to go."

Her boyfriend went pale. "Wait, seriously?" He pulled out a blue crystal and pulled her into the created light.

Author's Note-

 _I wanna know what you guys think—Tam or Dex for Biana? Fitz for Linh? Or would Dex be better? Help me decide, please! I ship Biana with both boys and can't decide for Linh._

 _More chapters on the way soon:)_

 _Owl~_


	8. Chapter 7-

Chapter 7- (Extra long, just the way you like it.)

Sophie stumbled onto the sand. Wait, sand? She glanced up, and took in a beautiful human beach, the ocean sparkling. Leaning against Keefe for support, she pinched herself.

"Whoa, Foster, this is totally real." He reassured her. "We're in the Forbidden Cities."

Alarmed, she felt her throat and—yep, there was her registry pendant. "We could get in trouble!"

"Chill," Keefe waved the air in between them. "I got the Black Swan to hack into the program. Some _how_ , a simple promise not to prank a Forkle will get you a date."

"Okay." Sophie was sure she was blushing, hard.

Her boyfriend tugged off his shirt, exposing his well-muscled, tan chest. "We gonna go in or no?"

"Going in," she replied, not taking her eyes off him. How could someone be so hot? She doubted even Fitz looked this great in black swimming trunks.

The trademark smirk exploded on his face. "Who's checking out the Keefster?"

"Stop it," Sophie said, swatting at him with her hand. Peeling her eyes away from him, she pulled off her dress, feeling super self-conscious in her teal bikini. When she looked up, she found Keefe staring at her.

"Whoa," he said. "I thought you would look good in a bikini, but you look way better than I thought." His cheeks flushed, and his eyes went to her hands. "Last one there is a rotten egg," he called, hurtling towards the waves.

"Hey!" Sophie protested, using a brain push to catch up with him. "Wait up!"

"No can do, Foster," Keefe said teasingly, jumping into the water first.

She wasn't far behind him, jumping.

Surprisingly, Keefe caught her in his arms before she could hit the water. "Where you going, Foster?"

"Let me down!" She squeaked, her face heating rapidly. She squirmed.

"If you say so." Her date took her down so fast she hardly had time to breathe before she was underwater, dunked. Submerging gave her chills, and she shuddered against his chest.

The gravity change allowed her to float free, but her boyfriend only pulled her closer to his chest. Breath catching, Sophie held his gaze, wide-eyed. Was he going to kiss her? He reached up and tucked a curl behind her ear. Realizing her lungs were burning, she kicked towards the surface. Emerging beside her, he gave her a small smile, one that was seemingly confused. Sophie eyed Keefe before pouncing—literally. "You!"

"Me," he agreed, letting out a laugh. Using some maneuver, he swung her around so that she was clinging to him, looking up at his smiling face.

He was so close that she could feel his breath, hot on her neck. Just as his lips were about to brush hers, a wave sent him stumbling forward, tripping and almost dropping her.

"Whoa!" Keefe said, swiftly putting her down on her feet. "That was some wave." He tugged his hand through his messed up hair, somehow making him look cuter than ever, and her heart fluttered.

She only smiled up at him wading out deeper into the water. "I'm gonna go deeper than you," she teased.

"In the water, or in our relationship?" He flirted back, taking after her.

Sophie didn't think before she spoke. "Maybe both," she blurted, feeling her cheeks grow hot. Covering up her embarrassment although he could feel it anyway, she went deeper, only her toe tips touching the sand.

"You're so cute, you know that?" Keefe was only up to his chin.

The comment only made her blush deepen, and she watched as he waded deeper in than her. Not wanting to be outdone, she paddled after him, silently cursing herself for not taking that swimming class Amy had taken back when she was little. Now she couldn't touch, and she glanced up at her boyfriend.

Keefe was watching her, amusement curling his lips. Sophie was soon exhausted, and he knew it. When she stopped treading, she went behind him and jumped on his shoulders, refusing to keep making an effort to stay afloat. "Aww, Foster, you didn't have to do that," he said, more complaining than anything else.

She covered his eyes, giggling as he attempted to pry her hands from his skin. Waves lapped hungrily at Sophie, and she watched with satisfaction as they didn't even get close to her.

…

As they went ashore, she realized just how late it was. The sun was practically above their heads and she hadn't even eaten lunch. Fortunately, Keefe had somehow produced a picnic blanket with a basket containing all of her favorites. She watched in wonder as he unpacked everything, not even bothering to put a shirt back on. Instead, he wrapped a towel around her shoulders, then nabbed one from his bag for himself. He was just so sweet. Sophie sighed dreamily, thinking of what he'd said. 'I just want to ensure the future of Keefoster.' She smiled. She definitely wanted him in her future, 100%. Her first date was a hit.

The whole time she was eating, Keefe flirted with her, telling cheesy jokes the entire time. She was kept on her toes by this, and she couldn't help but laugh and flirt back, finding she was actually enjoying this. Soon she found herself leaning into his strong form, looking up into his eyes again.

"You know, Sophie, I think I've fallen in love," he joked.

She sucked in her breath. He never called her Sophie. A strong sense of dread ran through her at his words, and her head started to spin.

"Relax, Foster," Keefe traced his palm down her cheek. Everywhere he touched tingled. Time seemed to speed up all around her. Nudging her, he chuckled. "I'm talking about you, but that face expression was totally priceless." He leaned in, kissing her cheek. "I love you, Foster."

Everything started spinning, and Sophie stared at him in wonder. This was her first kiss! Well, from someone that wasn't in her family. But was it really her first kiss if it was on the cheek? Didn't that have to be on her lips? Was she a good kisser? Keefe sure was, but he had most likely had practice. He had definitely been asked out before—he was gorgeous. Had he asked out anyone? Her face went tomato red, and the details of the scenery around her sharpened.

Author's Note-

 _You guys are gonna have to wait on that liplock-sorry, not sorry._

 _I wanna see some of those reviews-tell me if I'm doing anything wrong. Don't forget to tell me who you're shipping Biana and Linh with-I haven't gotten enough info to decide yet._

 _Owl~_


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8-

Sophie skipped into the house happily, whisking herself up the stairs in a trance. Dodging her parents' questions, she flopped on her bed, daydreaming of Keefe.

An imparter call interrupted her thoughts, and she sighed, seeing that it was Biana. Knowing she couldn't ignore her friend, she picked up. "Hello Biana!"

"Sophie!" She greeted from the other end of the call. "How was your date with Keefe?"

"Perfect," Sophie said dreamily, staring off into space.

"Snap out of it!" Biana demanded. "Did you tell him not to tell Fitz?"

She froze. She'd completely forgotten. She would have to hail him really soon. "Um, no."

Her friend frowned. "Well, you better do it before he starts bragging. So, what happened?"

Sophie explained all the details. "Then, I was leaning against him, and he leaned down and kissed my cheek!" She wasn't going to share what he'd said; that felt too personal.

"O. M. G!" Biana squealed, jumping up and down. "Was it on the lips?"

"Nah," Sophie said, her face flushing. "Just the cheek."

The Vacker nodded. "Why not the lips?"

"He did try," she admitted. "But he always got interrupted by some wave—that's what he gets for trying to do it in the water."

"Oh, uh-huh." Biana said understandingly. "Hate that. Moving on—have you packed for the sleepover tonight yet?"

Sophie's face went a bit paler. "Thanks for the reminder! What do I need?"

"Sleeping bag, Ella, pillow, makeup, and a change of clothes. You know, the usual." She was dusting eyeshadow across her eyelids as she said this.

"Yeah, okay, but I'm not bringing makeup, much less putting it on," she remarked as she stuffed her bag full of stuff.

"Aww, come on…" Biana whined. '

"No," Sophie said firmly. "That goes for makeovers, too."

She sighed. "Why are you always ruining my fun?"

"Why do you want to give me a makeover?"

"It's just for fun!"

"Whatever." Sophie hung up, feeling dejected as she stomped downstairs. "Mom? Dad?"

"Hmm?" Edaline looked up, her soft fingers tucking her hair behind her ear. Grady glanced up from the pile of scrolls.

"Can I go to a sleepover at Everglen?" She fluttered her eyelids, giving them her best puppy eyes.

"Absolutely!" Edaline rapped on the table.

Grady, on the other hand, was a different story. "Will That Boy be there? What about Fitz?"

"Umm…" Sophie felt her cheeks flush. "I think…maybe."

"Grady, stop giving her a hard time!" Her mother exclaimed, fanning her face. "She can go, it's not like anything is going to happen that we can prevent. She's 16, for goodness sake!"

Her father glowered, but the hard edges on his face softened. "Promise you'll be careful?"

"Of course!" Sophie promised, charging into a hug from her parents. Melting into it, she went up to kiss them both on the cheek. "I love you guys."

"We love you too, Sophie," her parents chimed together.

"I'll be back tomorrow at lunch. 'kay?" She didn't give them a chance to respond before going up the stairs two steps at a time. The Leapmaster gleamed, matching her smile. "Everglen!"


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9- Two POV Chapter (Fitz and Sophie)

 **Fitz POV**

Fitz was ready, letting his friends through the gate with confidence. Today he was going to ask Sophie out. He'd known that she had formerly had a crush on him. Not all of those feelings could have gone away, right? But he was the obvious choice. He had her number one, and she had him second on the match list. He suddenly scowled. The only thing, was that he and Keefe were tied on her list, but surely, she would choose Fitz, right?

"Dude," Keefe said, shaking his head. "What are you thinking? Your expression is totally priceless."

Fitz forced a smile, trying to control his emotions. "Nothing, just that we are going to have a lot of fun."

His best friend's eyebrows shot up, and he grumbled to himself, obviously not believing his excuse. "Okaaaay."

He swiftly quickened his pace, not wanting Sophie behind them to hear their conversation. "Let's just go inside."

Biana was already sitting in the living room, looking quite bored with herself. When she glanced up and saw them, her face lit up. "Finally, where were you guys?"

"Coming here," Keefe said, casually flopping onto the rug, throwing his arm on Sophie, who was beside him.

Fitz squinted at his friend's arm on his crush. What was going on between those two? Sophie wasn't even blushing; instead, she leaned into Keefe, a soft smile on her face. _Can I talk to you?_ He transmitted.

 _Of course,_ Sophie's soft voice echoed through his head.

"I have an announcement to make!" His best friend's voice rose up.

Sophie stood. Keefe shot her a questioning look as Sophie stood up, and in response, she just shrugged. Making her way over to him, she followed him into his room.

"I've got something to ask you." Fitz's heart started to pound. "Will you go out with me?"

"Oh." Sophie's face fell.

"What's wrong?" He asked, his sense of dread returning.

"I…already…you know that Keefe was going to make an announcement just now?"

He nodded, hoping this wasn't going where he thought it was.

"He…was gonna announce that we're dating." Sophie glanced up, uncomfortable. "Sorry, Fitz. I would've said yes if you'd asked me first. But now…" She shook her head before turning and running out of the room.

Everything hit him at once: anger, jealousy, disappointment and worst of all, sadness. Somehow, he was surprised. He didn't actually feel angry at Keefe. It was his fault that he hadn't gotten his girl, after all. But…Sophie. He couldn't believe she'd chosen Keefe.

 **Sophie POV**

She couldn't believe this. Just when she thought that her life was perfect…really Fitz? When he'd transmitted to her, she was curious. What a mistake.

-Flashback-

Fitz flopped onto the bed, wringing his hands. "I have something to tell you," he'd stated carefully, not meeting her eyes. Now he glanced up. "Will you go out with me?"

Her mouth went dry. "Oh." Her face fell. He was asking this now?

"What's wrong?" His eyes searched hers eagerly, but not in a good way.

"I…already…you know that Keefe was going to make an announcement just now?" Her stuttering was grim as she noticed his expression harden.

Fitz nodded.

"He…was gonna announce that we're dating." Sophie didn't know what else to say. She was trying not to hurt his feelings, but it was probably too late. She was going to try anyway. "Sorry, Fitz. I would've said yes if you'd asked me first. But now…" She couldn't finish the thought. She turned and ran.

-Flashback-

She curled up in Calla's tree, hidden by the many leaves and blossom all around her. This had always been her safe place when she needed it, with Calla. It was all too easy to imagine Calla right where she was, cupping her hands around Sophie's face. _Stay strong, my Moonlark._

 **Fitz POV**

He went back to where the group was. Scanning faces, he frowned when he didn't see her. "Where's Sophie?"

Keefe's face turned from light to dark so fast that it was scary. "Why don't _you_ tell _me_ , I'm her boyfriend, after all."

"Wait—she's not here?"

"Does it look like she's here, Wonderboy?" Dex practically spat.

Keefe stood. "I'm going to go looking for her."

"She ran off after we talked, so I have no idea where you should look." Fitz said hesitantly.

Biana narrowed her eyes. "Mind telling us what this little chat was about, brother?"

Fitz's face flushed. "Um…nothing."

Dex glanced at Keefe. "Good luck! If I were you, though, I would start by Calla's tree; it's her safe place."

"Affirmative," he saluted, then stalked over to Fitz, his lips brushing his ear in a soft but deadly way. "Stay away from my girlfriend." With that, he leaped away.

Author's Note-

 _You guys, your reviews are so adorable! I love hearing from you!_

 _Tiana is dominant with Linh single, as of right now. Keep casting those votes!_

 _Owl~_


	11. Chapter 10-

Chapter 10- Keefe and Sophie POVS

 **Sophie POV**

Sophie leaned back against the small trunk of Calla's tree, still sniffling quietly. She was starting to calm down now, her steady stream of tears breaking. Tucking in her knees, she wrapped her arm around them, putting her head on top and relaxing.

"Foster?" She glanced down to see Keefe, studying her, concerned. Climbing up, he sat on the same thick branch that she was sitting on, so that they were face-to-face. "What's wrong?"

She let out a bitter laugh. "Just when you think that you have your life all figured out, someone has to go and ruin it." Instead of looking at him, she let her gaze slide past his broad shoulders, where she could see the ocean and the cliffside pasture.

Keefe was looking seriously ticked off now, she could tell. "Is there any way you could be a _bit_ vaguer?" His ice-blue eyes met hers, pleading. "What's going on, Sophie?"

Her breath sucked in. He never called her Sophie…he must be really serious about this. Sophie pushed herself up, so that she was looking at him right in the eyes. "Fitz asked me out."

 **Keefe POV**

Fitz? Anger bubbled up inside. How dare he try to make a move on his girlfriend. Keefe would've gone to pound him if Sophie wasn't in front of him crying. Now all he could do was put his arm around her. "It's okay, Sophie…"

She leaned into him, wiping her tears away. "Sorry…I know I shouldn't be upset over something so small…"

"Shhh," he shushed her. "This is what it feels like to be normal…everything counts."

"Thanks, Keefe," she whispered, resting her head on his chest. Her smile was the only thing he needed, and it was the perfect moment. Soon she stopped crying, then let out a laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" He asked, curious.

Sophie shook her head, her hair swinging around her. "It's just something that human kids used to say…it's almost what we're doing now."

"Well, what are we missing?"

For some reason, her face flushed at the question. "The kiss." When he didn't reply, she took it the wrong way. "The rhyme would be for us, Keefe and Sophie, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. But, you don't have to do that."

"Says who?" Keefe asked teasingly, leaning in closer. "Hmm?"

Sophie's face went tomato red, and she was kind of speechless.

* * *

Author's Note-

 _Sorry for such a short chapter...I have some things going on right now._


	12. Chapter 11-

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p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Chapter 11- Keefe and Sophie's POVs/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
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p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-weight: bold; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Keefe POV/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""What are you two doing up there?" Keefe looked down to see Sandor frowning. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
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p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Flashing a grin, he put his arm around Sophie's shoulders. "Why do you ask? I was just playing my favorite game…"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Making Foster blush!" His girlfriend did exactly that. "Wow, that came out weird."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Don't worry; we're coming down now," Keefe said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before leaping off the branch onto the ground. Sophie leaped, and he caught her, then put her down on the ground. Then he gave Sandor a /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}"smirk./span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Thanks," The goblin bodyguard said sarcastically, sending him a glare./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""No prob." He winked, before turning his attention to his girlfriend, who was blushing behind a wall of hair. "I'll see you later?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"She only swept her hair out of her face. "Um, yeah."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Cool," Keefe said casually, flipping some hair out of his eyes. "Bye, Sweetheart." Before she could respond, he leaped away./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-weight: bold; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sophie POV/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sweetheart? That was a new one. Her cheeks heated, even though she was sure he was only getting back at Sandor for interrupting them. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Her bodyguard was steaming beside her, staring at the spot where her boyfriend has just disappeared. "That Boy…"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sandorrrrr/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"…" she whined. "Not you too…" She turned, skipping back inside the house./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Where's Keefe?" Grady instantly demanded as she walked through the door. "That Boy was supposed to have that talk with me…"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-style: italic; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Some/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"one scared him away…" Sophie shot Sandor a nasty look./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Sorry!" The goblin put his hands up as if surrendering. "He was about to /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"mphmhpl/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"mpf/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"." She'd covered his mouth, before he could say that they were about to kiss. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Yeah, okay," Grady whined, complaining. "But /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-style: italic; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"I /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"wanted to scare him away…"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Never mind that," /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Edaline/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" interrupted him. "Why are you back from the sleepover so soon?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Oh, um." Sophie desperately tried to think up an excuse. "Things got way too awkward between all of us with these relationships. It hasn't really been normal since we got those scrolls, that's all." Pushing past them, she made her way upstairs. It wasn't a total lie, right? Locking the door to her room, she sighed. Did she really want Keefe to kiss her? It was a full on-the-lips kiss, too, Was she ready for that?/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" She didn't know. What was wrong with her? She sat back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Why were relationships so confusing?/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"An /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"im/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"parter/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" beeped, probably hers. She lunged across the bed, hitting the 'answer call' button when she saw /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana's/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" face. "What's up?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""So/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"phie!" Her friend looked panicked. "Can you come over? Girl crisis. I've already called Linh; she's on her way."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Of course! I'll be right over." Sophie hung up on her imparter, dashing downstairs. "/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Edaline/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;", Grady, can I /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"go/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" to /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Everglen/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"? /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana's/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" in a girl crisis." /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Sure. Just make sure to be back by dinnertime, okay?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"She nodded, then shouted "/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Everglen/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"!" And the light whisked her away. She landed outside of the gates, where her friend was /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"already/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" waiting, holding it open for her. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Come on," /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" said, leading the way to her room. Once they were there, she shut the door./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""What's going on?" Linh asked her./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Tam asked me out, but then, just now, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Dex/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" asked me."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sophie sucked in her breath, grimacing. "What did you do?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Well, Tam asked me earlier, and I asked him for some time to decide. Now I'm stuck, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings." /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" sat down on the bed. "What am I going to do?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Well, you could always go on a date with both of them to see who you like more," Linh suggested. "Tam's so sweet, he would totally agree to go along with that."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Dex/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" would too," Sophie insisted. "Just one thing to watch out for with him: He can get jealous."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"She only got a disdainful look from /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;". "I'm sorry I told you that you were lucky to have so many boys chasing after you. It's not easy."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"A hollow knock at the door sounded, and Fitz peeked in. His eyes flitted around the room, before landing on Linh. "Can I speak to you?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Linh flushed. "Okay." She made her way to the door, hesitating before taking his outstretched hand./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sophie and /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" exchanged amused looks. "Think he'll ask her out?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; z-index: 0;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" squealed. "So that's what he's been planning! He'/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"s been acting pretty weird all day."/span/spanspan class="LineBreakBlob BlobObject DragDrop SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;"span class="SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanbr class="SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Fitz bounces back," Sophie agreed, teasing. Still, something about it bothered her. Shaking the thought away, she reminded herself that she had a boyfriend./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"The door was suddenly flung open as a blonde smirking prankster walked in. "Ladies."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Keefe."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sophie's boyfriend flashed his trademark smirk, sitting down and draping his arm over her. "I hear that there was a girl crisis?" When they both blushed, he winked. "I knew it was about the /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Keefester/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"!"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Actually, no." /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" said, huffing. Her cheeks were crimson, even though she had said she was getting over him. It was taking longer than she thought, Sophie guessed. "It's not about you."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Aww, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Biana/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"!" Keefe batted his eyelids. "Don't be that way."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Keefe!" She shot back. "You have a girlfriend." Her cheeks were the color of a pepper now./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""You mean, the Mysterious Miss F?" He inquired, hoisting Sophie onto his lap. "I know."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sophie turned around, sure her cheeks were red. Grabbing his arm, she pinched him, hard, leaving a mark./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Ow!" Keefe protested, rubbing his arm. "Feisty. That hurt."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"She only stuck her tongue out at him, leaning back against his chest, which was luckily, not uncomfortable. "/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"So/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" much for '/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"all the ladies love the /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Keefester/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"!'"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Your emotions contradict you, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"m'lady/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"." He said flirtatiously./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Sophie made a pouting face. She knew Keefe thought it was cute, and it was her weapon against him. "/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Keefie/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"!"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""No!" He shielded his /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"face with his hands/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"./span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" "Not/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW34480681" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" the pouty face!"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="EOP SCXW34480681" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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	13. Chapter 12 (ALL FIXED!)

Chapter 12

"Miss Foster?" Sandor's voice rose from where he stood on the ground. "Am I interrupting something?"

Sophie jerked away from Keefe a bit. She was sure her face was way redder than it had ever been in her life.

Keefe gave the goblin a trademark smirk. "Yeah, actually you were." His hand shot out, wrapping around her waist as though it was meant to be there, pulling her closer to him. He made a big show of caressing her cheek, wiping away the last wet trail on her face.

The bodyguard scowled at her boyfriend. "Get her down here right this minute!" He barked.

"Oh, alright," Keefe said, dragging his voice out as if bored. Giving her a quick peck on the cheek, he casually slipped off the branch, landing on the ground.

Sophie quickly followed, but instead of landing on the ground, she landed in his waiting arms, blushing. "Thanks."

He put her down gently. "It's not a problem at all, Miss Foster," he said slyly copying Sandor's deep voice.

Despite herself, she let out a giggle, playing along. She knew that he was trying to get back at Sandor, and judging from the goblin's red, furious face, it was working. "My hero."

"No problem, m'lady," Keefe said with a deeply elegant bow. "Anytime." He shot her bodyguard a smirk before pulling out his home crystal. "I'm afraid that I must begone, but I beg your forgiveness for my soon absent self." With that performance, he was gone.

Her cheek tingling, Sophie skipped into the house, her mind focusing on the scene that had just taken place.


	14. Chapter 13-

Chapter 13- Keefe POV

Keefe held the door open for his girlfriend as he walked in. Partly because he wanted to please her, but mostly, he'd rather she soften Grady up for him. "Ladies first."

Sophie knows him too well, exchanging a look with him as she obliged. "I'm home!"

He heard Grady and her start conversing, and Keefe slipped in, hoping her father wouldn't notice him too soon. When he raised an eyebrow at him, he only greeted, "Hi, Grady!" with his trademark smirk.

Instantly, his face morphed into a scowl. "We need to have a talk."

"We do," Keefe agreed. Everyone else in the room seemed surprised, and he heard a sharp intake of breath from Sophie.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"

She was sweet to offer, but Keefe needed to handle this himself. "Nah." He gave her a kiss on the cheek, then gently pushed her towards the stairs.

Grady sighed, glancing at him. Sophie's footsteps had long faded."You know, I'm not actually worried about you with Sophie. I know you'd never hurt her willingly." His voice was reluctant.

"Wow, what a vote of confidence," he tried to joke, but his mouth felt dry with surprise. Somehow there was no sarcasm in his voice when he said this, and he gulped. "What is it then?"

"Fitz," he said bitterly. "That boy has issues—it's a wonder the rest of the elvin population doesn't realize this."

"Oh, Linh needs to realize that too…she's dating him…and he's using her to…make Sophie jealous." Keefe snuck glances at him, watching with amusement as his face got redder and redder.

"What?"

"Don't worry, Gradester," Keefe said causally. "We're going to try and break them up without Linh getting hurt…it includes a few pranks."

The hard edges of Grady's face softened considerably, but he still wore an expression of anger. "Keep him away from my daughter."

"You gotcha!" Keefe winked with his trademark smirk before starting up the steps. Knocking on Sophie's door, he heard some shuffling noises as she tried to hide whatever it was. "Coming in, Foster." He threw open the door dramatically, only to see Sophie with her shirt halfway on. _Awkward._

Her face was super red now. "I didn't know you were coming back up," she squeaked adorably while trying to keep her dignity while wriggling into a tunic.

"The Keefester is unpredictable," he stated simply, sitting next to her on the bed. "For instance, I wasn't beat by Grady."

"Whoa—Keefe—really?" Happiness shone on her face as she jumped up and gave him a hug.

He laughed. "I love you too, Foster."

She let go, her face burning.

"Why'd you stop?" All of his confidence drained, and he was worried that he'd done something wrong. "The Keefester is irresistible." His words sounded hollow, even to him.

"It's just, I feel like it's so early for you to be telling me that you love me." Sophie looked at her feet. "I mean, we haven't even really explored that zone yet together, do we really know that we mean it?" Anguish was coming off of her in waves.

"Hey." Keefe nudged her. "If you don't want me to do it, I won't." He felt kind of hurt that she felt like that, but he could do it.

Foster yawned. "So….sleepy." She leaned against him, her eyelids drifting shut. She was asleep in seconds.

Keefe held her against his chest, sharing the warmth that he had to offer. "Sweet dreams, Soph." Somewhere in his mind, he faintly remembered Biana and Linh saying that they were coming over. Taking his imparter, he hailed Biana.

"What's up?"

"Sophie can't have you over; something came up." He talked softly, even though he'd left the room.

"Oh, alright." Biana smoothed her hair. "Tell her that we'll fill her in tomorrow, while we're preparing." Before he could ask what exactly they were preparing, she'd hung up.

Tucking the device in his pocket, Keefe made his way back inside her room, picking Iggy up. "Hey, little guy."

The imp purred, nuzzling his hand in greeting.

He ran his hand over the small creature, small strokes going through its fur. Iggy had been dyed blue with sparkles, to Biana's insistence. These days, Dex would do anything for her.

It was becoming clear that those two had feelings, or something, between them. Tam and Biana, on the other hand were becoming increasingly awkward around each other.

Keefe glanced at Sophie now, who's breath was softly coming, making no sound at all. Her small chest rose and fell, and he found whatever relief he could in the simple motion. Shaking his head, he opened the door, shutting it quietly with telekinesis to make sure he wouldn't wake her.

Turning around, his heart leapt to his throat. Edaline was literally one inch from his nose. "You almost gave me a heart attack," he hissed under his breath.

She laughed. "What's a heart attack?" Her gaze drifted past him to her daughter's door, and she stepped closer in that direction.

"She's sleeping," Keefe whispered quietly, putting his finger to his lips.

"You didn't prank her?" Edaline's eyebrows shot up as he didn't reply, or say that she would find out soon. "Wow, I've never heard of you not pranking someone."

Heat rose to his cheeks, and he hoped it wasn't showing. He would've pranked any other person. Really. Scratching his neck, he turned, covering for the light blush splotching his cheeks. "I have to go now," he forced out in a rush, before taking his crystal out and leaping away.

…

"I'm home!" Keefe's voice echoed around the huge house, fading into the last corners of the top of the floors in who knows where. His eyes narrowed angrily, but his fists unclenched. It wasn't as if he actually expected his dad to come rushing down the staircase, asking him about his day and stuff like any other dad would. Sighing, he flipped open his back pocket, slipping a bomb bag under the woven furnishings of his dad's chair. Payback. Sophie would be proud.

Now he started upstairs, climbing up two at a time, like he'd seen Sophie do. It was surprising, this was actually way more fun than doing it the normal way. Grinning like an idiot, he stopped, heading to the Vortinator on this floor. Carefully avoiding the first step, he called out, "133!" The machine spun to life. Soon he was on the right floor, and not even a bit dizzy.

Keefe smiled in memory. If Sophie were with him, she would be stumbling off, holding her stomach and clinging to him as she tried to get her bearings.

His smile vanished. He couldn't get that girl out of his head. In the last three minutes, he'd thought about her at least three times. Groaning now, he stepped off, making a beeline for his room.

Grabbing his sketchpad from one of the other hidden pockets on his pants, he sat down, sketching the outline of Sophie without realizing. His mind started to wander, and Keefe started questioning why he cared so much. Without pausing, he looked down, smile softening as his eyes met her brown ones on the paper.

Flipping to a new page, he made a new sketch, not letting himself fully comprehend what he was doing. An actual smile stretched across his face when he looked down. It was a drawing of Sophie and him, his arms lifting her high above his head as she stared him down, a rare smirk appearing on her lips.

Author's Note-

 _Hello, my dear readers. Sorry, but I'm going to be updating less now as school is really kicking off. I know, I know-Owl, you haven't gotten us out of the suspense and it's killing me! I feel ya, I really do. I just had some stuff going on, so you can expect an update...about every week. If I don't, then bug me as much as you feel._

 _Reviews-I really appreciate them. Don't be a silent reader!_

 _Owl~_


	15. Chapter 14

Chaptear 13- Biana & Sophie POVs

 **Biana POV**

"So, I'm totally stressed out, okay? Fitz, just get the message: out! Please, my love life is enough without yours on top of that. Ugh, I swear, if you don't get out I will sic Tam on you." She screeched.

"Jeez, Sis," my brother said, obviously too self-centered to care about anyone else in his life. "I just want your advice."

"I don't—I can't—UGH!" Biana stood up and shoved her brother out of her room, slamming the door and locking it. Putting her back to it, she slid down into a sitting position, resting her head in her hands. Her life was way too complicated for anyone her age. At least Sophie didn't have a brother!

Breathing in and out rapidly, she went over to her desk and stuffed her mouth with Mint candies that she'd gotten from Sophie, who was baking human stuff all the time now. The fresh taste instantly relaxed her, and she sighed.

Her head spinning, she nabbed her imparter, calling Tam and Dex. "I'm sorry you guys, but I'm going to need a month before I can go on a date with either of them. My life is, like, way too complicated right now, and I can't deal with this. It has nothing to do with you, okay?" She hung up on them, her shoulders sagging.

A low knock sounded on her door, and Biana turned around, annoyed enough already. Her voice filled with knives, she sneered, "Who is it?"

Hesitation. "Sweetie, I haven't seen you all day. Is everything alright?"

"Mom?" Biana hopped off the bed, instantly unlocking the door. "Just…not really."

Della instantly cupped her hands around her daughter's face. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

Giving a forced smile, she only gestured for her mother to sit on the bed, closing and locking the door behind her. Making her way over to her beanbag chair, she flopped down with a thudding noise. "Tam and Dex both asked me out, Fitz is being infuriating as usual, he'd asking me for girl advice, Sophie is relying on me for beauty advice and relationship advice, and I'm so behind on my homework from Foxfire…I'm so stressed."

Her mother nodded, a thoughtful look appearing on her face. "What's an immediate trouble? Let's tackle that first."

"Homework, I guess."

"So, finish that first." Della replied evenly. "The—wait no, don't do that first. Ripplefluff, you look as though you haven't slept in days. Take a nap, then tackle the homework."

"Yeah, okay," Biana said, checking her nails that she'd done that morning. Even though her mother was doing this to make her feel better, it wasn't working very well. But at this point, she was desperate, so she climbed under the sheets. "Goodnight, Mom."

"'Night, ripplefluff." The lights flicked off.

 **Sophie POV**

"Sophie?"

She glanced up to see her mom, who was looking at her with rounded eyes. "What's up?"

"Grady and I have an announcement, so if you'd like to come down and hear it, now would be a good time."

"Sure." Sophie clambered off her bed, catching Ella right before she hit the ground. Putting her back on the bed, she followed her parents downstairs.

Grady smiled at her shyly, something that never happened. "Don't be mad, okay?"

"Mad?" Her nose wrinkled. "I'm so confused right now. Just tell me?"

Edaline didn't waste any more time. "I'm pregnant."

"Whoa!" Sophie's head started reeling. "When did you find this out?"

Her mother looked at her apologetically. "The day you started dating Keefe…I didn't want to risk ruining your perfect day."

"Are you—" Grady started to ask, his forehead furrowed.

"Not mad," she assured him. "Just…wow."

"I know!" Edaline squealed, then started rambling. "Do you think it will be a boy or girl? I'm hoping a baby boy, honestly. How cute would that be?"

"Well, I, for one, am hoping this will be a girl considering how great Sophie turned out," Grady said with a wink in her direction. "What about you?"

"Gosh, I don't know," Sophie said with a small smile. "You gonna ask Elwin?"

"No," her mother replied instantly. "We want it to be a surprise."

"Ooh! Can I help you shop for the baby once he or she's born?" Sophie looked up eagerly. She wanted to be a proud big sister, the one who picked out the trendiest clothes for her sibling. She wasn't much into shopping, but this was special.

Her father shrugged. "If you want. Personally, unless it's a boy, count me out. Shopping is _not_ my forte."

She laughed. Grady was right on that; Edaline and her were constantly nagging him about his poor taste in fashion, though it wasn't always that bad. It was quite fun.


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15-

Sophie's head was spinning. After she'd gone up to her room, she'd been unable to sleep, thinking about the day's events. Even without a photographic memory, she knew that she would have remembered today of all days. Now she rubbed her temples, attempting to stop her crushing headache.

Her imparter interrupted her rubbing, beeping like mad. Sophie groaned and rubbed her temples, nabbing the small device from her desk. "Hello?"

"'Sup, Foster!" There was only one person who it could be.

"Keefe," she greeted lamely. "Just…stuff on my mind." She smiled at him.

"What type of stuff?" He asked, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. "Like, what happened in Calla's tree, or something else?"

"Edaline's pregnant," Sophie blurted, and a crushing headache surged through the mental wall she built. She winced, rubbing her temples and imagining her stupid headache outside of her mind, relaxing when it left. It'd been five minutes, and Keefe hadn't replied, so she glanced at him.

Her boyfriend had been silent, a pondering expression coming across his face. He met her eyes. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

She shook her head. "It's kind of a shock to hear; especially after what happened with Jolie and what I went through."

"I would imagine," Keefe said. He combed his fingers through his messed-up hair, making it look better than it had previously. "You need to sleep," he said suddenly.

"What?" Sophie was caught off guard.

"When's the last time you slept?" He asked, concern clear in his expression. She must have really dark circles.

Sophie only shrugged. "The last time you were holding me." She really hoped she wasn't blushing.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16- Tam & Linh POVs

 **Tam's POV**

"You're blind to how he's using you!" Tam shouted at his sister. He couldn't understand how she thought that he actually liked her in that way. He only really had eyes for Sophie these days, and it was going to break Linh's heart.

"He's not using me," Linh protested, throwing her hands up in the air beside her. "Why does everyone think that?" Anger had hardened in her eyes and her soft voice was gradually getting louder in result of it. Then all of the anger drained out of her eyes, and she glanced at Tam. "Don't you want me to be happy?" A single tear slid down her cheek, and she stalked into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Tam let out a sigh. She'd known so much suffering, but she was still the same naïve person. It was killing him! Going into his soundproof room, after locking the door, he pulled out his imparter. "Biana," he whispered to it.

Immediately she answered his call. Her teal eyes shined eagerly as she awaited the news, her beautiful black hair framing her face in such a dainty, delicate way. "Tam, did you find anything out?"

He sighed. Biana had him wrapped around her precious finger, and she knew it. "No, nothing. Just…Linh really thinks that he's in like with her, for real." His eyes met hers across the screen. "What are we supposed to do?"

Biana's pretty head tilted in thought. She hesitated, before turning to him. "Sophie, Keefe, and I were planning a prank to do it…but I feel like that won't work. What if…what if we have Sophie have Fitz kiss her…and her not kiss back."

Tam gulped. "Wouldn't Keefe get upset?"

"Not if we tell him first."

He bit his lip. "We're still going to break her heart, though."

Biana's head nodded firmly. "It's kind of inevitable, at this point. The only thing we can do is break it before she falls farther, so it won't hurt as much."

"Oh." Tam's voice sounded hollow, even to him.

 **Linh's POV**

I can't believe him! She ran her hands through her black hair, anger putting edges on her soft features. He knows how much this means to me! Sighing, she rested her back onto her bed.

She really did think that Fitz liked her. Just because he'd liked Sophie first didn't mean that he still liked her!

Fitz. The name sent chills up her spine. She smiled in memory.

…

 _"Linh." Fitz ran his hand through his hair, making it shoot up in spikes, which somehow made him look even better if possible, his teal orbs focused on her. There was something in them, but she couldn't distinguish what. "I was wondering…"_

 _Is he going to ask me out? Her heart had leapt in her throat, as she sucked in a breath._

 _"Would you like to go out with me?" Guilt filled his features, but she brushed it off, figuring that it was just for not caring for Sophie at all, which she was okay with._

 _"Of course," she whispered softly, trying not to seem too desperate. Her hand twisted her ring back and forth on her finger._

 _"Hey," his voice came out, and his hand tipped her chin upwards, sending tingles up her spine. "Don't be nervous."_

 _Linh smiled, flustered. "I'm not nervous." For some reason, though, a smile hadn't broken out onto her face until now, but this one was forced. Something felt off._

 _Awkward tension filled the air for a moment._

 _Fitz flashed a grin, brightening the mood. "So, how's Friday for a first date?"_

 _"Perfect," Linh breathed, knowing that if she had anything that day she could come up with some excuse; this was too important. "Right after school?"_

 _"You know it," he said._

 _She let out a girly giggle. "What should I wear?"_

 _"Oh, um," Fitz looked embarrassed. "formal wear would probably be best."_

 _"Formal it is," Linh teased. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she smiled, standing. "I'll be looking forward to it." This was too awkward, she wouldn't want to continue much longer._

 _Fitz stood too, lacing his fingers in hers. "I will too," he mumbled, almost looking shy._

 _…_

Linh's smile had disappeared, replaced with self-doubt. Maybe he didn't like her. Shaking the thought from her head, she smiled. She was determined to enjoy this date, no matter what. Who cared what the others thought? She smiled, feeling the small thrill of rebellion run through her. She hadn't told Tam about the date!

But her moment was ruined when she realized that he was mad at her. Tam and her never fought, ever. How was it that a boy could be the cause of it, so easily? Well, he was wrong, she decided. But she was going to make it up to Tam. She refused to be in a silly fight over a boy with him.

Standing up, she walked out of her room and to Tam's. Knocking, she asked, "Can we talk?"

The door opened almost instantly. "Yeah," her brother said. "Yeah, we should talk."

Stepping into his room, Linh sank onto the bed. "I'm really sorry that I fought with you over…that. It was silly."

Tam's eyes were searching hers now. "I'm sorry too, and against my better judgement, I am going to say that I'll try to stay out of your…your love life in the future."


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 16-

"Sophiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee…" Keefe's voice persisted. After she'd told him, he'd jumped to Havenfield and run to her room. Ridiculous. She knew he cared, but this wasn't necessary.

"Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeefe," she matched, watching him carefully. But the stubborn look on his face informed her that she might as well give in, as pretty much nothing was going to keep him from getting her to sleep.

"You know what?" Her boyfriend's serious gaze was turned on her for once. "We're doing this, whether you like it or not."

"Huh?" Sophie's mind was spinning, but by the time she'd caught on, his arms were already around her and she was in the air. "Keefe!"

He only flashed a grin at her, from right above her face. "Foster!" Cradling her head, he flopped down on the bed with her, causing Sophie to let out a small indignant squeak.

"Hey!" She complained, rolling off of him, taking one of her pillows and throwing it at him.

Unfortunately, her aim was horrible, and he was great at catching things. Keefe snatched her pillow out of the air, right as it was about to zoom past him. "Nice try, Foster." His stupid smirk appeared on his face. "Now it's my turn!"

Sophie scanned her bedroom frantically, grumbling to him, "Show off!" Seeing that he was about to hurtle it at her, she dove under her covers. When the blow she'd braced for never came, Sophie got tired of waiting. Peeking out from underneath the blanket, she was confused to see nothing. "Keefe?" No reply. Deciding that he wasn't there, she took the cover off of her head and got up looking around, when—

"AHA!" Keefe's voice was the last thing she heard before the world disappeared into pure black for a moment, and her face stung where the pillow had hit. To her credit, though, she didn't cry out.

Sophie wheeled on him instantly, grabbing the nearest soft thing she could find (which happened to be Ella) and hitting him with it.

"Ow!" Keefe said, his hand flying to his shoulder as he looked at the stuffed animal with newfound respect in her eyes. "She's got a mean head!"

Sophie only smiled triumphantly. "Even?" She stuck out her hand.

He leaned back, sticking his hand in his back pocket. "Maybe…"

"Keefe!"

"Alright, okay, now we're even." He shook her hand.

 _Bzzt!_

"Keefe! A buzzer, seriously?" Sophie whined. All of the hair she had was sticking up straight.

Her boyfriend was on the ground beside her, laughing like a little kid and slapping his knee. "Classic! I knew you would fall for that! Like it's not suspicious to stick your hand in your pocket before shaking someone else's." The wide grin on his face almost made up for the fact that he was laughing at her misery. Almost.

Sophie pouted, then smiled—with no good intentions. She took a button from her pocket—the one she always carried when she was in the house. Dex had installed a bunch of nets and things designed to kill people with. It was from the Neverseen days…wow was she glad that was over. They probably still worked, since Dex was top notch.

When Keefe noticed what was in her hand, all the blood drained from his face, and he looked a bit…pale. His wide ice-blue orbs were growing bigger, and he stopped laughing altogether. "Sophie, don't."

She stood there with her foot tapping against the floor, leaning against the wall casually, button in hand and poised to hit. "What's that you say?"

Keefe sighed, grumbling to himself that she was "impossible" and "no fun at all." "Please? Pretty please with my good hair on top?"

Sophie cocked an eyebrow.

"Fine. With a…a…" his face was scrunched in concentration. "With a, um, what was it? Cherti on top?"

"Cherry," she muttered.

"So, pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiine," Sophie said, dragging out the word with a smile on her face. She tucked the button back on her pocket, but made no other moves.

"Help me up?" Her boyfriend finally asked meekly from the floor.

Sophie shrugged, appearing nonchalant. But in her mind, another devious plan was forming. She reached down and stretched out her hand.

He took it willingly, grabbing her hand and about to heave himself to his feet when…She dropped his hand and he slid back down onto his butt. "Ow! Foster, what was that for?"

"You know what it's fow, Keefie," Sophie commented in a baby voice. She pursed her lips. "I know you wike to have funny-wunny!" She reached out her hand again, using her normal voice. "I won't drop you again, okay?"

Keefe glanced at her warily.

"You trust me, right?"

The minutes she said that, he took her hand and pulled himself up.

Sophie's breathing hitched. They were standing face to face. She could feel his warm breath on her scalp, and she glanced up to meet his gaze. She tried to think of something to say, but her brain had gone completely blank, leaving her to stare up at him.


End file.
